


Honey Boy

by siriuspiggyback



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (only very vaguely but just to be safe), Angst, Child Neglect, Gen, Implied Child Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Honey Boy (2019), Sex Work, implied violence towards children, nothing on screen but heavy implications, y'all i cannot stress that this isn't a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26429854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuspiggyback/pseuds/siriuspiggyback
Summary: Ben is hanging around a little way off, close enough to keep an eye on Klaus, but far enough to make a point. He always gets testy when Klaus does this. It’s a little ridiculous, all things considered. Klaus sells sex all the time, even if usually it’s a little more informal, in exchange for a bed and sometimes breakfast if he’s lucky. How is this any different?
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 45
Kudos: 171





	Honey Boy

**Author's Note:**

> although everything is implied/off screen, this includes heavy themes of danger towards children. if this is potentially triggering, please check the end notes for a full list of content warnings. stay safe!<3
> 
> shoutout to the folks on discord, dan especially, for encouraging me to post this. y'all are my favourite clowns.

It's a little early to be on this corner.

Usually, Klaus would wait until later, the midnight hours when men sneak from their wives to fuck hookers they find on street corners. Usually, though, Klaus isn’t coming down, down, down, and dangerously close to sober. By the time it’s busy hours, he might be seeing _them._ It’s not a risk he’s willing to take.

Still, there are some positives to being out this early. Whilst the clientele is thin on the ground, Klaus is the only person working this corner, so he doesn’t need to be worried about competition; this is particularly fortunate, because right now, Klaus probably couldn’t compete with a blow up sex doll. His makeup is smeared to oblivion, and he’s sweating like it’s the middle of July, rather than late October. The only advantage he has are the killer heels on his feet. He had stolen them from some old drag queen who had been either too naive or too kind for her own good when she let him nap in the dressing room whilst she performed. He tries not to feel guilty about it. After all, a boy’s gotta eat. 

He can feel Ben’s glare on the back of his neck. The ghost is hanging around a little way off, close enough to keep an eye on Klaus, but far enough to make a point. Ben always gets testy when Klaus does this. It’s a little ridiculous, all things considered. Klaus sells sex all the time, even if usually it’s a little more informal, in exchange for a bed and sometimes breakfast if he’s lucky. How is this any different?

Sighing, Klaus shifts his feet. The shoes might be gorgeous, but they are not comfortable. He’s really embodying the whole _beauty is pain_ concept. Well, beauty might be strong word, but Klaus knows he’s still very much fuckable, even if he looks like a cheap fuck. Which is whatever. He _is_ a cheap fuck. 

God, these _shoes._ He flexes his toes. Maybe he should just take them off, go for a barefoot, hippy vibe. But then maybe he’ll end up being picked up by some dude with a foot fetish, which- Klaus knows he has no room to judge, but _yikes._

“Hi?”

Klaus starles, blinking up from where he’s been staring at his feet, and then a little further down when he realises he’s overshot. Standing in front of him, all of five feet tall, is a- well, there’s no other way of saying it: a _child._ He’s smallish, maybe eleven or twelve, and staring up at Klaus with wide eyes, half afraid, half stubborn. Klaus swallows. “Um, hey there, kid.” He looks around, but they’re alone on the street, it seems. “Where are your parents?”

The child shrugs. “Out.”

“How did you get here, then?” Klaus asks, as if he hadn’t been sneaking out at that age, looking for someone who doesn’t care about the morality of selling weed to kids. Christ, had Klaus really ever looked that young?

“Walked,” he says nonchalantly, hands shoved in his pockets.

Stuffing down the part of himself that cries out _‘hypocrite’,_ Klaus tells him, “You shouldn’t be walking around by yourself. It’s not safe, especially around this part of town.” This, Klaus had learned the hard way, back when he had been young and naive. This kid shouldn’t have to learn that.

Shrugging again, the kid doesn’t reply, just rocks on his heels, seemingly deep in thought.

Ben, who’s been lured closer by the unusual circumstances, speaks up then. “You should take him home, Klaus. It’s not safe for a kid out here.”

In response, Klaus shoots him a look, because yes, _obviously._ Klaus may not know much about kids, but he knows that. To the child, he says, “How about I walk you home, huh?”

“I don’t wanna go home,” the kid mutters.

Klaus’ stomach drops. It’s a sentiment that he’s all too familiar with, and one that he can’t do much to solve. What’s he going to do, report the parents? No cop is going to take some strung out whore seriously. He runs his hands over his face, smudging any remaining makeup, before dropping down into a tenuously balanced crouch. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?”

The boy looks at him for a moment, and Klaus wonders if the kid is finally going to show a hint of self preservation instincts, but eventually he answers, “Charlie.”

“Charlie,” Klaus echoes with a smile. “Well, my name’s Klaus. It’s nice to meet you.”

Shyly, Charlie mumbles, “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Why don’t you want to go home, Charlie?”

"My parents…" 

"Yeah?" hums Klaus.

Charlie fidgets. "They're- They're-... I mean, they're rich."

Klaus blinks. This isn't what he had expected - but then, he knows more than most that rich parents did not a good childhood make. "Okay…?"

"They're good people," he says, with the familiar ease of repeating something he's been taught, "but… I don't think that they like me very much."

His mouth goes dry, and he glances to Ben for support, but his brother looks just as devastated and lost as Klaus feels. "Charlie, do they hurt you?"

"No." 

He should feel relieved, but Klaus knows that Luther would say the same thing. "So why don't you want to go home?"

The kid purses his lips. "They’re rich, but they’re barely ever home, and even when they are, they just shout at each other, because my dad keeps paying for” - his voice goes hushed and scandalised - ‘ _sex_ with ladies who aren’t mom, and mom spends too much money too apparently, and they… they never hug me, even if I ask.”

Fuck. “I’m sorry, kid.” 

Charlie’s expression wobbles, like he’s trying not to cry. “So I thought, uh…” He fumbles in his pocket, and pulls out- a thick wad of cash. Klaus gapes at him. 

“What are you…” he trails off, an abhorrent guess forming in his mind.

“I was wondering,” Charlie says, offering out the cash, “if I could pay you for a hug?”

Suddenly, it’s Klaus trying not to cry. He can’t imagine how desperate a kid must get to go out looking for a hooker to buy a _hug._ Klaus has always considered his own childhood to be a lonely and cold thing, but even if dad had been a callous, unfeeling bastard, and mom had been a literal robot, he at least had his siblings. If nothing else, he could still sneak into Ben’s room after a nightmare, or tussle with Diego when he started to feel like maybe he was a ghost himself. Where would he be if he hadn’t had them around? Nowhere good, he’s sure. Klaus croaks out, “You don’t have to pay for that. I’ll give you a hug for free, okay?” (Klaus isn’t sure he’s ever _turned down_ cash before, but he can’t bear the thought of making this a transaction.)

Beaming, Charlie says, “Oh! Okay!” He stuffs his money back into his pocket, and takes a half step forward, arms twitching up.

Klaus drops onto his knees - and not in the context he was expecting to be doing this - and holds his arms out, trying to figure out how to hug someone so small, where to put himself without being awkward about it, because he hasn’t so much as brushed past a child since he was one himself, and-

He is doused in ice water.

His bones go cold, cold, cold, and his lungs shudder, sucking in a reflexive gasp as his heart tremors in his chest, and he’s so cold, so terribly, terribly cold-

For a moment, he doesn’t quite register what’s happened.

Klaus wrenches himself away, toppling back onto his ass and scrambling back, his heels scratching against the concrete, until his shoulders collide with the wall behind him. 

Charlie looks at him with innocent confusion. Like he doesn’t know what just happened. Like he doesn’t know what he _is._

(It’s obvious, in retrospect. 

_‘You shouldn’t be walking around by yourself,’_ Klaus had said.

_‘It’s not safe for a kid out here,’_ Ben had said.

He knew more than most that these streets bite at children’s ankles and leave them scarred, or worse, in the darkness, gobble them whole. Klaus knew just how easy it was for kids to get hurt when they’re all alone, knew the kind of people that hound and hunt them, the kind of creatures who look at children and think _prey._ Why hadn’t he realised?

Klaus isn’t naive. 

Maybe, a small part of him thinks, maybe he had just wanted to find a kid who hadn’t been eaten up yet, one that doesn’t have to end up in the desperate half-life that Klaus lives, or the non-life that Ben does. Maybe he had hoped that, just this once, the kid could go home to a warm bed and a happy ending.

How stupid of him. To still have hope.)

He closes his eyes, and pretends not to hear Ben say, _just breathe,_ or Charlie say, _did I do something wrong?_

God, he’s too fucking sober for this.

Heaving himself to his aching feet, Klaus wipes under his eyes and hopes his makeup isn’t entirely destroyed. Jaw tight, he leans back against the damp bricks, and tells himself that ghosts are just ghosts, no matter how young and sad and wishful they might look. Charlie’s dead; it’s all in the past. Move on, he thinks. 

A car crawls to a stop. The window winds down.

Ben says, “Klaus.”

Charlie says, “Klaus?”

Klaus says, “Okay.” He takes a deep, shaking breath, and plasters on a lewd grin as he saunters over to the open window, leaning down to greet his customer.

By the time the stranger is pulling into some dingy motel parking lot, there isn’t a single ghost in sight.

He tells himself that there’s no point clinging to the past, and all the things that can’t be undone. So he smiles, smiles, smiles as his john pulls him into the rented room, and pretends something in his chest isn’t shaking apart.

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: sex work, drug addiction, implied child abuse/neglect, implied violence/sexual assault/predatory behaviour towards children, referenced child death, child ghost, unhappy ending
> 
> if you've made it to the end of this little fic, please let me know your thoughts<3


End file.
